Blair misses deadline for resignation honours

Tony Blair will next week become the first prime minister in modern times not to announce a resignation honours list bestowing peerages on his closest colleagues.

With only five days to go to his resignation next Wednesday not a single name has been referred to the House of Lords appointments commission. The vetting body has now run out of time to consider whether the names would be suitable to take a seat in the House of Lords.

The fallout over the "cash for peerages" allegations has effectively prevented Mr Blair from handing out any peerages to his colleagues.

Lord Levy, Mr Blair's chief fund raiser; Ruth Turner, his political secretary and gatekeeper at Number 10,and Sir Christopher Evans, the biotech millionaire, have been arrested by the police but not charged with any offence.

The Crown Prosecution Service has still to make a decision on whether anybody should be prosecuted in connection with the investigation.

What is not clear is whether a number of Downing Street staff and colleagues will still receive lesser honours, but one of Tony Blair's closer confidantes has told friends that "they will either be no resignation honours list at all or an extremely limited list".

Technically, both knighthoods and CBEs should also be cleared by separate honours scrutiny committees.

Earlier this year Mr Blair promised Tony Wright, chairman of the Commons public administration committee, that he would refer all his proposed peerages to the House of Lords appointment commission to prevent any allegations that the peerages were awards to cronies.

Now because of the delays caused by the long running inquiry he has missed the deadline for the committee to clear the peerages.